Tip of the Day - Opt-in Where Ever They Seek It

Try placing a subscription form on every page. Not all traffic comes in from the Home page. Try checking your web logs and see what other pages are getting the most traffic. Don’t hide the fact that you have a newsletter.

eINFO - a collection of articles and studies about email marketing

Email Becoming Databases?

Joia Shillingford, BBC News, released an article on how email is becoming the new database. The article points out how more and more people are using web-based email services to store data and photos so they can retrieve them from anywhere.

Why buy a bigger hard-drive for your personal computer when you have 1000 MB of storage at your finger tips with Gmail? There has been a long rumor that Google is planning to have a virtual PC where all you need is an Internet connection to access all of your files. Are we there yet?

eINFO – a collection of articles and studies about email marketing

Tip of the Day – Style Sheets

Some e-mail applications will strip out the HTML code between the head tags. To format your e-mail, use inline style-sheets and the font tag.

Here is a site that I found that has some relevant information about the use of style sheets within a HTML email.

eINFO – a collection of articles and studies about email marketing

Gmail Going Live?

Cnet News.com points out that Gmail has up it’s number of invitations to 50. I looked at mine own account and I have 50 invitations to give out. Is Gmail getting ready to go live?

eINFO – a collection of articles and studies about email marketing.

Tip of the Day - Sign Up Page

When providing a sign up page try keeping the form as simple as possible by asking for minimal information. Try only gathering demographic data that you really need. Provide links to example newsletters so the person can get a sense of what they are going to receive. Send an automated “Thank You” message after a user signs up for your newsletter. This will reinforce what will be sent in the future.

eINFO – a collection of articles and studies about email marketing

MarketingSherpa – Lessons From USAToday.com

MarketingSherpa released an article (free access untile Feb. 13) talking about email practices from USAToday.com. The article talks about how USAToday.com buys quality co-registration opt-ins, how they use co-branded sweepstakes to increase their email lists, how they measure opt-in name quality, and they talk about their use of RSS feeds.

One great tip they talk about is involuntary unsubscribing. They remove anyone who has not opened and/or clicked in the past 120 days. They then send a follow up letter explaining that the recipient has been unsubscribed and offer to put them back on the list.

The one thing marketers should know is that you can’t rely on just the “HTML Open” statistics. You should look at if the recipient has clicked on a link in the last 30, 60, 90 days before unsubscribing them from your lists. Most of the case studies that I have seen that talk about this method usually use 120 days as their cutoff point. Someone not clicking on a link in the last three months is a good indication that your newsletter is no longer relevant to them.

eINFO – a collection of articles and studies about email marketing.

Tip of the Day - From Address

Use a clear and consistent “From” address. Put some copy in your e-mail asking the recipient to add your “From” address to their address book to ensure delivery.

Here are a couple of websites that I have run across that give specific instructions on how to add the companies “From” address to the recipient’s address book for some of the top email applications.
http://dellemails.kolartools.com/help.html
http://www.catcosmetics.com/mail.aspx
http://www.wakeboarder.com/other/whitelisting.phtml
http://www.yesmail.com/downloads/AddressBook.html

ReturnPath also published a whitepaper on getting your recipients to add your “From” address called, “The Secret Role of the Email Address Book… and what it means for you email delivery”.

eINFO – a collection of articles and studies about email marketing

“No man is an iland” Blog Analysis

Mark Brownlow, who writes the No man is an iland blog, recently released an analysis of his articles as it relates to email marketing trends. Through his analysis, Can-Spam and Deliverability were the two biggest trends talked about. Here are his results:
Can-Spam and related legislation: 17.9%
Other spam issues: 12.4%
Deliverability: 12.1%
Email address providers: 9.6%
Strategy/tactics: 9.2%
Case studies: 6.1%
RSS: 5.8%
Surveys/trends: 5.5%
Events: 5.2%
State of industry: 3.5%
Other issues: 3.5%
List management: 3.2%
E-newsletters: 3.2%
Format/design: 2.9%

eINFO – a collection of articles and studies about email marketing.

Tip of the Day – Use of Graphics

Some e-mail applications turn graphics off by default. Try viewing your e-mail with the graphics turned off to see if your e-mail is easily understood. Stay away from using too many graphics and limit the number of animated images.

eINFO – a collection of articles and studies about email markeing

Is Your Email Being Delivered?

JupiterResearch found that more than half, or 54%, of email marketers do not use an email delivery auditing tool to proactively improve results. The rate increases to 65% for those marketers who use in-house systems as oppose to email service providers. The report says that many marketers rely on post-campaign methods to identify delivery problems. JupiterResearch executive interviews revealed that investing in delivery services/solutions can improve email delivery by 10 to 20 percent.

Another recent report, Delivery Auditing Tools: Justifying the Investment, made a conservative estimate that marketers using an email delivery service will reduce their costs for delivered mail by two to 10 percent, in addition to increasing revenue by delivering more mail successfully to the inbox.

eINFO – a collection of articles and studies about email marketing